New parties and the transformation of the Italian political space

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the programmatic supply and ideological positioning of parties in the general election of 2013. The Italian party system went through format simplification through a reduction in the number of party units after the creation of the two large parties, PD and the PdL, but the erosion of their vote and the corresponding breakthrough of the large anti-system party, the Five Star Movement, have reversed the previous tendency towards increased fragmentation. My main goal is to understand whether, after the emergence of new parties on the political scene, the national political space has changed not only in terms of format, but also of mechanics. In particular, this article explores whether new dimensions of party competition have arisen and whether the ideological positioning of parties has consequently been affected. I show that after 2013 the Italian party system was ideologically more polarised and multidimensional than in the past as new issue dimensions emerged and traditional ones acquired new meaning.